Ahmed El-Saedi was pricipal conducter of the Cairo Symphony for the best part of a decade before his acrimonious split with the Opera House. He speaks with Amal Choucri Catta about the past, present projects and future hopes For ten years Ahmed El-Saedi was principal conductor of Cairo Symphony Orchestra. He gave his last concert at the end of June 2003 at the Cairo Opera House following which, for reasons that have yet to be made public -- as is often the case -- the Opera House took the decision not to renew his contract. Cast adrift, El-Saedi had little choice but to strike out alone. He went on to form a chamber orchestra funded by Ibrahim Abou El-Eish, head of the Sekem group, which is also planning to open a private university. "I had been asked by Abou El-Eish to organise the musical section of the new university, which is currently under construction, and to form an orchestra," says El-Saedi. Due to lack of funds, however, and to the limited number of instrumentalists, El-Saedi opted for a chamber orchestra, "something we are badly in need of in Egypt where there really isn't an orchestra really of the title". In autumn of last year the new orchestra, headed by El-Saedi, gave eleven concerts which, he says, met with great success. "You see," El-Saedi continues, "a chamber orchestra requires musicians of the highest calibre and I was fortunate in finding them. There were, though, a number of financial problems which, combined with a lack of adequate fund raising, brought an end to my collaboration with Abou El-Eish and Sekem." "I had, nevertheless, started along a new road along which I am determined to continue. Together with the members of the chamber orchestra we decided to continue, though obviously we will have to do so in a different way. The orchestra will have to be independent, to be financed exclusively through private sponsorship. It cannot be the property of any single institution, any particular administration -- it must operate on the same footing as non-governmental orchestras in Europe and elsewhere." "So now I am working with Ibrahim El-Hegazi, a professor of marketing, who is taking charge of fundraising and hopefully we will be able to realise a project that might serve as a model for similar endeavours. The very concept remains novel here in Egypt -- a major cultural project that will be financed completely by the private sector rather than the state." If El-Saedi entertains any doubts about the feasibility of financing an orchestra from private contributions and business sponsorship he is not letting on. It is, he insists, "the right time for a new orchestra. The time is ripe and at this point we have three venues at our disposal -- the Monasterly Palace on Roda, the Ewart Memorial Hall at the American University in Cairo and the International Conference Centre in Nasr City. Indeed, the orchestra has already performed at the Ewart Hall -- their concert last January was one of the highlights of the season." "The instrumentalists are all permanent members of the orchestra. They are under exclusive contract -- they perform nowhere else and cannot be recruited by other orchestras which is the case with the majority of foreign ensembles. But in order to insist on this you have to recompense the musicians adequately. You cannot pay them a pittance and then insist that they do no other work. One of the major problems with the Cairo Symphony, in my view, is that they are paid too little, barely enough to cover the essentials of a respectable life." "Now we have a programme ready, and guest stars willing to appear. Fund raising, well that is Hegazi's domain. And I do not expect it to be problematic. The orchestra, after all, is a unique venture here in Egypt, and there are plenty of music lovers, both local and foreign." In recent months El-Saedi has spent a great deal of time abroad: he is, after this interview, about to depart for Vienna. And much of that time has been spent as a guest conductor. He was particularly pleased with two concerts with the Radio Prague Symphony Orchestra, the first a performance of Shostakovich's Ninth Symphony, the second of Aziz El-Shawan's piano concerto, with Wael Farouk as soloist. They were, he says, "exquisite concerts", for which one must take his word. And then El-Saedi moves on to the absence of any ensemble in Egypt comparable to a radio symphony. "Egyptian Radio and TV have their own orchestras but only for Arabic music. They do not have a symphony orchestra, and this is a drawback. Symphonic music is a window on the world. Those who argue that there is no audience for symphonic music here, because it is a European import and has no relationship at all with Arab culture, betray only their own ignorance. Such ideas are not only wrong but represent a threat to culture." But it is a point this maestro does not pursue. the change of subject is swift, and suddenly we have moved to the Conference Centre in Nasr City, where, "by the way, we have been asked to perform waltzes and music by Johann Strauss while accompanying a ballet ensemble from Vienna at the opening of the coming song festival." Which, El-saedi insists, "just goes to show you that institutions are not only aware of our orchestra, but that they want to emply us. We are, obviously, filling a niche that would otherwise remain empty." "The chamber orchestra comprises 12 musicians, five foreign and seven Egyptians, mainly string players to whom we add the winds when necessary. The latter are not permanent members of the orchestra, at least not for the time being. It would be foolish to recruit wind instrumentalists on a permanent basic as long as they are not needed regularly, particularly given that we provide working conditions far better than those offered to the Cairo symphonists, who are leaving the orchestra in droves." "This latter is something that saddens me a great deal. I spent a decade at the head of the symphony, and I worked hard with the members, and they were excellent musicians at the end." It is a decade that obviously weighs heavy on El- Saedi, who seems determined to mull the situation over one more time. "You see, the administration did the wrong thing, and instead of finding a solution to the dire financial situation of the musicians, which has been deteriorating for years, those in charge brought in an expensive foreign conductor thinking they had solved everything. And this was, as everyone knows, quite wrong. In fact it hasyened the decline of the orchestra. If the money had been invested in the orchestra instead of being thrown out of the window, instead of enormous amounts being paid to a foreign conductor, the situation might have been saved." So would, given his past experiences, El-Saedi contemplate a return to the Cairo Symphony in the purely hypothetical situation of being asked? His is unequivocal in response. "Yes, though only under certain conditions. The orchestra would have to be changed fundamentally. Today's orchestra is not at all the one I used to head. It is no longer Ahmed El-Saedi's orchestra, which during the 2001-2002 season was playing at its peak. Unfortunately, I now realise that the work I did over ten years has been totally destroyed. Egypt has lost an orchestra of which it could once be proud. So a great many changes would have to be made, and those changes require the kind of planning, planning that looks to the future that is, I'm afraid, almost entirely absent." "Where is the conductor's workshop I created? What happened to the musical festivals, to the season dedicated to Arab composers? And how can the latter hope to flourish under a foreign principal conductor who knows nothing about serious Arab composers, and who has never bothered to listen to their music? "What are the conceptual underpinnings of the programming policy? How are concerts organised? Is there any attempt to link them or are they simply miscellaneous musical evenings with no special aim or purpose? That, in the past year, seems to be what they have become. "How is it that an orchestra that once gave a weekly concert has recently sometimes performed only once a month, with the other three slots being given over to a weekly concert of commercial Arabic music. In 1869 Cairo Opera House presented eight months of opera programmes with singers of international repute. How is it that almost 150 years later it is content to programme work of zero importance?" "It is wrong to think that Cairo Opera House can function on ticket receipts. No opera house in the world covers its expenses in such a manner. The New York Met, for instance, generates barely seventeen per cent fof its income from ticket sales. The rest is made up by fund raising and sponsorship." "Think of the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, which is neither an official nor a governmental institution but a non-governmental association. It relies, as do a host of similar orchestras, on its ability to raise funds." "And do not tell me that fund raising in Egypt is impossible. It is simply a new practice here, one to which we have yet to become accustomed. But people do exist who know how to go about it, and go about it successfully. "What Cairo Opera House needs to do, then, if they are ever going to be able to present programmes worthy of such a venue rather than commercial Arabic performances, is to engage in a concerted effort to raise additional funds. They must, too, rectify the situation regarding publicity. For far too long publicising events has been neglected and it is time for a change. It is time for public relations, for advertising, fund raising and sponsorship campaigns to be placed into the right hands. The entire system needs a radical overhaul. It is time to bring in the right people and place them in the right jobs, regardless of whether they are related to, or friends with, official personalities." "If we offer audiences good performances they will accept them and enjoy them, whether they are of opera or symphonic music. Symphonic music and opera are part of the international heritage. We have accepted jeans, and jazz, philosophy and the cinema, none of which are Egyptian. So why should we not accept, why should we not embrace symphonic music and opera? Why do we not use music and singing as a bridge, between the European and the Arab worlds, between the Orient and Occident?" "Yes," concludes El-Saedi, "I would return to Cairo Symphony but only under conditions that will allow the symphony to work, and work to the best of its very considerable ability. Yet on the other hand, in the past year, I have succeeded in building up and orchestra which is new to Egypt and I am happy with the result. I like the work I am doing. "Well," he adds after a pause, "let's wait and see." The day after this interview came the announcement that the director of the Opera House, Samir Farag, was to be appointed governor of Luxor. His successor has yet to be named. Let's, as El-Saedi said, wait and see.
